Plug Ugly Publick House

The Plug Uglys were a 19th century political club (though more often thought of as a street gang) that operated in Baltimore from 1854 to 1860. Originally runners and rowdies affiliated with the Mount Vernon Hook and Ladder Company, a volunteer fire company whose truck house was located on Biddle Street between Pennsylvania Avenue and Ross Street, the Plug Uglys’ street influence soon made them useful to party politicians anxious to control the polls on Election Days. As one theory goes, they are suspected of kidnapping Edgar Allen Poe to be used in their nefarious election day intimidation which led to his death shortly thereafter.